Signs are hopeful with an inside source telling our friends at Vegas Rover today that this weekend is still a go with either a Friday or a Saturday, May 24 debut. Test riders were spotted flying between the off-Strip resort's hotel towers throughout the weekend. VegasChatter reader Henry M. reports visiting family at the Rio who had a "great view of the loading zone." He tells us single riders were taking multiple trips all Saturday afternoon. Henry snapped the pictures you see at the top of this post as well as just below.

If you've been waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting.. and, well you get the picture.. for Slotzilla, you should probably back out of this story now. The latest rumor on Fremont Street won't make you happy.

Where once we heard this weekend could.. possibly.. see the return of zipliners to downtown, we now have a new rumbling to report. Rumors that Slotzilla won't open until at least April now. This is by no means official. Slotzilla stopped giving an opening timeline long ago. It's also been silent on Twitter of late. Its last tweet was sent on January 29.

We’re still waiting on Rio’s new VooDoo Zip Line. Originally scheduled to open in August, VooDoo’s most recent projected opening date was early November. Confident that this time they finally got it right, we made a trip over to Rio to have a look (and catch a little WSOP action). What we found didn’t surprise us, but left us disappointed once again.

For a zip line that is supposed to be opening right now, there’s a discouraging lack of line upon which to zip. The latest construction update is full of flashy cuts featuring people using tools, telling us that something is happening, but what? Where are the ride vehicles? Where is the zip line’s line?

No one wants to say whenSlotzilla will spit out its first zip liners after missing its targeted opening of June, but from the sounds of things, it could, maybe, be next month?

The Facebook page of the Fremont Street Experience warned fans yesterday that the installment of Slotzilla's cables (called the Zipline and the Zoomline, #funfacts) would cause "mall and road closures over the next 2 weeks," now through this Friday, November 8 and then repeated next Tuesday through Friday (November 12-15) as well.

The shutdowns will mean pedestrians won't be allowed on the mall between midnight and 8 a.m. Yes, you read that right. The Fremont Street Experience will morph into a late-night ghost town most of this week and next. Casino Center and 4th Street will also be closed to vehicle traffic.

Is it wrong that we wish Slotzilla was a working slot machine? While we won't ever get to spin the wheels, we will get to go for a spin before the year's out.

Vital Vegas captured the image above of a nearly complete thrill ride over the weekend. And, where once things moved at a snail's pace, check out what a difference a day makes as documented by VegasChatter fan Danial Mente who captured this snapshot early this evening:

We joked about SkyVue offering pre-sale tickets as a way to finish funding a second observation wheel in Vegas. Little did we know that we'd be writing about this seriously just a few days later. Not for SkyVue, though, but for Rio's VooDoo Zip Line.

Yes, the sky-high, sit-and-ride attraction once due to open in August (and then September and now November from the sound of things), has fired up an indiegogo crowd-sourcing page for "final funding," as first reported by Vegas Rover on Facebook.

It's been more than a month since our last check on Slotzilla, an 11-story zipline experience destined for Fremont Street that will resemble, as you can guess, a towering slot machine.

In late February, there wasn't much to see beyond construction fencing and ripped up concrete. Fast forward six weeks to today and it's much of the same. VegasChatter friend @sammasseur snapped progress photos for us that reveal more broken cement and hollowed-out trenches than anything else. (Although, a cement block footprint is starting to rise near Golden Gate. @sammasseur states this will be a permanent stage/landing area.)

Construction fencing is up and so are bits of Fremont Street as Slotzilla lumbers forward. The 11-story zipline posing as a ginormous slot machine is expected to open this June on Fremont Street. While only time will tell on when we'll actually see it, thanks to our friend Ted Newkirk at Access Vegas, we've a bunch of new construction photos to share.

Did our story on Slotzilla inspire you to take a zipline down Fremont Street? You are currently out of luck. Slotzilla (and we still really enjoy writing that) is the soon to be constructed, 120-foot, fake slot machine that doubles as a launching pad for two levels of zipliners. One part of this new ride will catapult you 1,700 feet down the street, under the neon, while you recline, arms stretched out like a superhero. We were crazy excited to give you all the details here.

But lost in news of an 11-story slot machine spitting out flying humans like loose quarters, was the update that Flightlinez, the original Fremont zipline experience, is currently closed. And being dismantled as we write. No more zipline for the time being.

Fremont Street Bars posted the scoop this weekend and the idea is so daffy, we think it might just work. Two elevators will take you inside the world's largest slot machine, Slotzilla, up to two different levels. Either platform will allow four people to fly at once. The lower level is for the seated zipline experience; similar to the current Flightlinez ride you know and love. Slotzilla adds a second level, 100 feet off the ground and with an added kick.

The rainbow might be extinguished, but one of Fitzgerald's Fremont Street legacies that lives on under the D name and exterior is the Vue Bar. The bar's patio overlooks Fremont providing a unique angle to people watch, take in the Fremont Street Experience, and spy zipliners. In fact, in our first downtown guide we pointed the less adventurous in your ziplining group toward Vue to snag a few photos while they drank your arrival.

Anyone who hasn't seen past the dancing dealers to make their way upstairs at the D still might not reach the patio. There's a little distraction called Sigma Derby (now open) that can get in the way. There's also coin-operated slot machines. A summer lobster palooza & bbq boneorama. For the record, yes, we included that last one just to say boneorama.